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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025676">the root of the root</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/alykapedia/pseuds/alykapedia'>alykapedia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, M/M, Magical Realism, Miscommunication, Slow Burn, Sylvix Big Bang (Fire Emblem)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 08:47:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025676</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/alykapedia/pseuds/alykapedia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p><br/>Sylvain doesn’t know it, but he gives his heart away when he’s nine.</p>
  <p>He gives it away after Miklan pushes him down the well. Gives it away, bruised and waterlogged still, to tiny, crybaby Felix, who is darling and dear; charming even—and especially—when he’s not, and it’s easily the best and most important thing he ever does.<br/></p>
</blockquote>(Or: In which Sylvain and Felix have each other's hearts but it still takes a continent-wide war for them to figure things out.)
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>358</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sylvix Big Bang</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the root of the root</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello, hello! I'm so excited to share this fic because I've had the idea for this fic for the longest time now and I legit joined the bigbang so I can bully myself into actually seeing this through HAHAHA Inspired by one of my favorite E. E. Cummings poems <em>i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)</em> because I was like, "wait, what if you <em>can</em> do that? give a physical manifestation of your love to someone?" and then it just kinda devolved into Sylvix and their childhood death pact and here we are!</p><p>I had the honor to work with Sarah (@radeeum) whose art is just *chef's kiss*.  <a href="https://twitter.com/radeeum/status/1296804765138001922?s=20">Please do yourselves a favor and check out the art she made for this fic!</a></p><p>All my love and thanks to rob, for reading the very, vERY, rough draft for this and telling me it made sense, and to forochel, for the cheer leading and all the lovely yelling in the gdoc comments.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>i.</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain doesn’t know it, but he gives his heart away when he’s nine.</p><p>He gives it away after Miklan pushes him down the well. Gives it away, bruised and waterlogged still, to tiny, crybaby Felix, who is darling and dear; charming even—and especially—when he’s not, and it’s easily the best and most important thing he ever does.</p><p>(“I hate him,” Felix sniffles, rubbing at red-rimmed eyes as he burrows further into Sylvain’s arms. He hasn't stopped crying, not since earlier—not since he'd found Sylvain at the bottom of the well, not since he'd gotten Glenn to rescue him. And any other time, Sylvain would be shushing him, murmuring comfort in his ears because he's always been weak for Felix’s tears, and has always hated seeing them. But right now, Sylvain feels like he’s still waist deep in freezing water, wretched and cold, so he lets Felix cry the tears he no longer can.</p><p>“Fe, it was an accident," he croaks, even though he knows it isn't. Even though he knows that Miklan had meant every word he’d hissed –<em> “you should have never been born” </em> – when he pushed Sylvain down the well. But knowing something is different from admitting it out loud. Because maybe if Sylvain doesn’t say the words, they won’t be true, and maybe he’ll have a brother who doesn’t hate him for something he has no control over.</p><p>But Felix has no such compunction as he cries, “It wasn’t! It wasn't and you almost died!" There's a heart-wrenching hitch in his breath, a noise that cuts Sylvain to the quick, and then Felix is sobbing again, fresh tears spilling from his eyes and soaking into the fabric of Sylvain’s shirt. "I don't—” Felix hiccups, “I don't want you to die."</p><p>"I'm not going to.” It’s an empty assurance, Sylvain knows, especially after today, after everything Miklan has done, and Felix knows it too, with the way he pulls away from Sylvain’s arms, eyes wide and fearful. </p><p>“But you almost did,” Felix points out, lower lip wobbling dangerously as he touches Sylvain’s bruised cheek, gentle in a way no one else has ever been with him before. And it’s this—Felix’s tear-damp hand cradling his cheek—along with Felix’s whispered, “you can’t leave me,” that has Sylvain spilling tears he didn’t think he still had and making a promise that he will carry for the rest of his life.</p><p>Because Felix is always being left behind and forgotten—by Glenn, his father, his mother—and Sylvain <em> refuses </em> to do the same, to <em> be </em> the same. He’s going to be different. Sylvain is going to <em> stay </em>. “I won’t. I’ll never leave you, Fe,” he says in a rush, wiping at his tears and then at Felix’s with clumsy hands. “Let’s make a promise, okay?” </p><p>“What kind of promise?” Felix asks even as he holds out a hand, little finger already poised and curled.</p><p>Sitting back on his haunches, Sylvain clears his throat and curls his finger around Felix’s—a tether, a bond, a covenant. “A promise that we’ll stay together until we die together,” he says into the space between them, and despite the chill in the air, Sylvain feels warmer than he ever has as he watches a smile unfurl on Felix’s lips.  </p><p>“Okay, it's a promise.")</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>ii.</p><p> </p><p>Felix surrenders his heart in increments.</p><p>He doesn't want to be like Glenn, who gives his heart away to Ingrid the moment they finalize the engagement just because they tell him he has to. Nor does he want to be like Dimitri, who gives his heart to a stranger one summer, along with a ceremonial dagger. And Felix certainly does <em> not </em> want to be like his mother who, for all her lessons and warnings, gave her heart to someone who did not love her enough.</p><p>(“You don’t have to stay,” Felix mumbles, even as he shifts closer, hiding his face in Sylvain's arm.</p><p>It’s been months since his Mama’s funeral but Felix’s tears still haven’t stopped. He can’t help it; despite what his Father says, he can’t just <em> stop </em> being sad. Not when he misses her and the sound of her piano waking him up every day, not when all he wants to do is curl up on the settee in her solar and pretend that she's still alive, singing lullabies to him until he falls asleep.</p><p>He can't even bring himself to go out with Dimitri and Ingrid, who came all the way from Fhirdiad and Galatea to see him, despite Glenn’s gentle urging and offers to show him a new swordplay technique. The most Felix can do is sit with Sylvain in his Mama’s solar while Sylvain reads. And he knows it's not enough, knows that Sylvain must be getting bored and tired of his tears too, but before he can tell Sylvain again that he can go if he wants to, Sylvain is pulling him in closer with an arm around his shoulder.</p><p>“I want to stay,” Sylvain says, “besides, Ingy and Dima want to train with Glenn, and I just want to sit here with you and read.” The words are sincere and matter-of-fact, the way Sylvain’s always are, and Felix can’t help the tears he cries this time around; not when they’re the only way he can process the sudden feeling of fullness in his chest.</p><p>“I’m sorry for being such a crybaby,” he hiccups once he’s calmed down and Sylvain is gently dabbing away at his tears with a handkerchief.</p><p>Huffing out a laugh, Sylvain shakes his head, leaning down to meet Felix’s eyes. “You don’t have to apologize for that, Fe-Fe,” Sylvain says, solemn, and Felix hears all the words he doesn’t say, loud in the silence between them. “I don’t mind.” </p><p>“Thanks, Sylvie.”)</p><p>He's careful with it; a piece tucked in Sylvain’s pocket, a shard left on his pillow, a sliver slipped between the pages of Sylvain’s favorite book. Felix gives his heart away, slowly, fastidiously, to the one person he knows will nurture and protect it as if it was his own.</p><p>("You should keep your hair long if you want to," Sylvain says, running gentle fingers through his hair and smiling a smile that has Felix averting his gaze away from their reflections. "You won't look like Glenn if you grow it out. You'll look like you, just with longer hair."</p><p>Felix frowns, glancing down at the pair of scissors he’d taken from the kitchens when Glenn’s teasing had become a bit too insufferable, then back at Sylvain, whose smile has turned into something softer, fonder, and Felix is suddenly struck with the knowledge that he won’t be cutting his hair anytime soon. </p><p>“And if my opinion means anything,” Sylvain continues as he bumps their shoulders together, loosening the knot in Felix’s chest, unraveling it as effortlessly as he seems to do everything else. “I think your hair looks nice long.”)</p><p>It's a slow surrender, a measured fall, because Felix wants to be certain, wants to be sure, even though he knows deep in his very bones that there's no one else he will ever give his heart to.</p><p>And then Duscur happens and Felix no longer has the wherewithal to be careful with his heart, so he gives the last fragile crumb of it, bruised and bloodied still, to Sylvain, and it’s the last good thing Felix does for a very long time.</p><p>("I'm here, Fe,” Sylvain says, unwavering and sure, the only thing mooring Felix to the shore as Glenn’s death washes everything away. “I'm here.” </p><p>Sylvain doesn't tell him that everything will be alright, doesn't praise Glenn's death as something honorable, and doesn’t offer him any empty platitudes of knighthood. Instead, Sylvain holds his hand and stays as he shakes and breaks apart in front of Glenn's grave, and Felix has never loved and will never love anyone more than he loves Sylvain at this very moment.)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>iii.</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain doesn't understand everyone else’s fascination with <em> hearts </em>.</p><p>Call him jaded or whatever, but he's never understood the almost cult-like interest in them, the way they’re valued as much, if not more, than crests. Maybe it’s because he grew up the way he did—in a mausoleum of a home, with a monster for a brother, another product of a loveless marriage. Maybe it’s because he knows that as much as his parents like to paint the picture of perfect marital bliss, they do not have each other’s hearts; his mother gave hers away to a travelling bard, long before he was even born, and his father—well—his father probably never had one to begin with.</p><p>Maybe it’s because thinking about hearts does nothing but remind Sylvain that he doesn’t have one, that he’s broken in a way that Felix, Dimitri, and Ingrid aren’t, that he’s a monster just like Miklan and his father.</p><p>Sylvain can pretend as easily as the best of them, of course, but he doesn’t and will never care for hearts, and he cares for them even less when they’re being pushed upon him by vapid, simpering girls who look at him and only see his family name and crest.</p><p>“Hey, I was thinking that I should give you my heart.”</p><p>The funny thing is that Sylvain can’t even remember her name or why he decided to ask her out, can’t even remember if he’d actually enjoyed the two dates they’d gone on before he’d taken her to bed, and yet here she was, handing her heart to him like it’s something he can conceivably want from her. It’s disgusting; a lurid, ugly thing cradled in her hands that’s letting out a strange, suffocating miasma. She might as well have pulled out her actual, beating heart, and he would’ve found the gore less horrifying than this. He can’t even bear to look at it, can’t even stand to have it near him, its sheer presence making his skin crawl and his stomach turn. There’s nothing beautiful nor warm about it and all Sylvain wants to do is run far, far away.</p><p>He’s about to do something stupid, hackles up and ready to lash out like a cornered animal, the insistent warmth of reason magic already licking up his fingertips. But before he can set fire to the kindling building up in his blood, familiar footfalls sound to his left and Sylvain doesn’t have to look up to know that it’s Felix rushing in, Sylvain’s knight in a vest and messy bun. </p><p>“What the <em> fuck </em> is going on here?” Felix asks, glaring at the girl as he stomps towards Sylvain, bringing with him a warmth Sylvain didn’t even know was missing. It’s warm, almost hot, this far south during this time of the year, nothing like the frigid climes he’s used to back in Gautier, so it’s startling to find that he’d gone cold enough that he’s shivering with it. </p><p>Sylvain doesn’t hear what Felix says to make the girl leave, only hears the sudden drumbeat of his heart, growing louder and steadier as he breathes in the familiar scent of Felix’s soap and the oil he uses for his swords. </p><p>“Sylvain?” </p><p>There's a worried furrow on Felix's brow, and Sylvain knows he shouldn't, but he's reaching out and smoothing his thumb over it before he knows what he's doing. And maybe Felix would have forgiven that, would have chalked it up to him being himself, but then Sylvain pushes his luck a bit too far, hands moving to cradle Felix's cheeks and—</p><p>“Do <em> not </em> treat me like one of your girls.” Felix hisses, flinching away from his grasp, and the <em> I couldn’t if I tried </em> festers on Sylvain’s tongue like an infected wound. </p><p>Because Sylvain hates these girls, hates them as much as he hates his crest, as much as he hates himself, but Felix—<em> oh, Felix </em>—he loves with an intensity that should scare him, but doesn’t. Not really. Because loving Felix with the entirety of his being feels natural, like it’s the only thing he’s meant to do. It’s as easy as breathing, and even when it’s not, loving Felix is a choice Sylvain will always make, even at his prickliest.</p><p>“Goddess, Fe, I’m sorry,” he says, repentant and sincere, the way he only ever is with Felix.</p><p>“Just—” Felix falters, mouth pressing into a displeased line as he searches for the words to say. “Don’t do it again,” he says, before adding, “and don’t do <em> that </em>,” just as Sylvain feels his lips curl at the edges into a smile he doesn’t feel. “You don’t have to pretend with me. I know you.” </p><p>And that’s what Sylvain’s most afraid of, to be known so completely and eventually be deemed unfit. His greatest fear has always been that one day, Felix will see to the very heart of him and see nothing, and he’ll finally realize that he’d promised his life to someone undeserving of it.</p><p>“What was she doing? That girl from earlier?” Felix asks, tentatively, as if he’s not sure if he can ask. As if Sylvain can refuse him anything when he hasn’t been able to tell Felix <em> no </em> ever since they were children. “You looked...scared.” </p><p><em> That’s one way of putting it </em> , Sylvain thinks mirthlessly, mouth pulling down into a grimace as he shrugs. It feels almost silly to admit to it now, to admit that he got spooked by some girl giving him her heart, but he’s never been able to lie to Felix about the things that matter, and although he’s not sure on the <em> how </em> and <em> why </em> of it, something tells Sylvain that <em> this </em> counts. “She uh—she was giving me her heart.”</p><p>He’s expecting a scoff or a derisive sneer in response, because the entire situation is ridiculous, instead he looks up to see Felix staring at him with wide eyes, irises almost iridescent under the noonday sun, wearing a look on his face that Sylvain, even with his encyclopedic knowledge of Felix’s expressions, can’t quite place. There's something about it though, something that catches around the very center of him and <em> pulls </em>, something that has Sylvain as desperate to erase it from Felix’s face as he is when it comes to Felix’s tears.</p><p>“I didn’t want it,” he says, needing Felix to know, needing Felix to understand that if Sylvain was ever going to want someone’s heart, it sure as hell wouldn’t be that girl’s. “It was wrong,” he continues, and suddenly Sylvain feels like he’s standing on the precipice of something bigger than himself. It’s on the tip of his tongue, a realization ready to break free, a bird itching to take flight from the cage of his chest. But before he can even start to make sense of it, the monastery bells ring, leaving Sylvain oddly bereft, and even more so when Felix looks away. “Hey, have you eaten? Let’s go to the dining hall. I heard they’re serving those Dagdan meat skewers you like.” </p><p>He’s already bracing himself for a rejection, but Felix just shrugs and says, “Okay,” starting to walk toward the dining hall and leaving Sylvain to stare after him bug-eyed, because <em> what? </em></p><p>“Okay?” </p><p>Felix stops, looks at him over his shoulder and makes a show of rolling his eyes. “You’re taking the vegetable salad that comes with them, though,” he says like it’s some kind of terrible condition and Sylvain laughs, a bright, happy thing that fills his chest and makes him forget about everything that’s not Felix’s little answering smirk, and the way he fits under Sylvain’s arm—a puzzle piece slotting perfectly into place.</p><p>“<em> Brat </em>, you say that like I don’t always eat your vegetables for you.” </p><p> </p><p>+</p><p> </p><p>To the surprise of absolutely no one, <em> hearts </em> are a very popular topic at the Officers Academy.</p><p>A part of Felix wants to hate it, wants to snap at anyone and everyone talking about hearts, because they’re here to learn about war, about the battlefield, not giggle and gossip about who gave their hearts to whom, but he can’t. Not really. Not when his fondest and most vivid memories of his mother is of her brushing her fingers—calloused and scarred, a swordmaster’s hands—through his hair while she tells him how he should only give his heart to someone who deserves it. Not when the open way people talked about hearts here in the monastery, a far cry from how it is back in Faerghus, stirs up his memories of her.</p><p><em> “You have to be careful who you give your heart to." </em> He remembers her telling him in a lilting whisper, a secret kept just between the two of them. Felix still doesn’t know if the words were really meant for him and not an admonishment for herself. <em> "They'll have to be someone you trust, and hopefully, my little darling, someone who loves you even more than I do." </em></p><p>(Felix doesn’t know if anyone will ever love him as much as his mother did, but he <em> does </em> trust Sylvain with his life—trusts him with more than that, if he’s being honest with himself—because Sylvain has never given him any reason <em> not to </em>.)</p><p>So as much as Felix wants to hate it, he can’t. Because any talk about hearts—not counting the exchange he’d had with Sylvain a while back—has a warmth kindling in Felix’s chest, and maybe that’s why he takes it all in stride when Dorothea turns to him one day with a teasing smile and glittering eyes, and asks, "What about you, Felix?"</p><p>Still, Felix is very much tempted to ignore her and walk away. Damn the Professor and her ever-changing curriculum which has Felix learning everything from archery and <em> now </em> reason, because apparently, he has a <em> budding talent </em> for it, whatever the fuck <em> that </em> means. But it had taken weeks of convincing to get Dorothea and Annette to tutor him in reason, and as much as he hates talking about himself, he hates not being able to master <em> Thoron </em> more, so he stays put and doesn’t even scowl when he looks up from his book.</p><p>“What about me?” He asks just to be contrary, as if he hasn’t spent the last hour and a half listening—<em> no </em>—being subjected to the not-so riveting tale of Professor Manuela’s apparently wayward heart, and earns himself a scoff and a scowl from Dorothea.</p><p>Across from him, Annette rolls her eyes, cheeks puffing up in annoyance, and Felix has to bite down on the laugh bubbling up his throat at the sight. “Felix!” Her cheeks are red, fully aware that hearts are not something they talk about in Faerghus but curious all the same, little gossip that she is. </p><p>Felix isn’t sure what possesses him to answer honestly, but he’s sighing and saying, “I already gave mine away,” much to Dorothea and Annette’s wide-eyed disbelief. </p><p>The disbelief only lasts for half a breath on Dorothea’s face, before it quickly morphs into realization tinged with the slightest touch of pity, as she realizes who Felix could’ve possibly given his heart to. Felix would bristle if he wasn’t still reeling from the mortifying ordeal of having someone see to the very heart of him in a matter of seconds, but with how things are, he can only avert his eyes from Dorothea’s knowing gaze, turning instead towards Annette. Annette, who’s still openly boggling at him, blue eyes wide and almost popping out of their sockets, as if she can’t even begin to wrap her head around the idea of him giving his heart to anyone.</p><p>"What?!" Annette shrieks after an embarrassingly long while, slamming her hands on the table and leaning in close. "Who—who is it?” She asks, oblivious to the frown he gives her, and he’s only saved from further prodding by Dorothea, who pulls Annette back to her seat by the back of her jacket with a small hum.</p><p>“I think you know who it is, Annie,” Dorothea says, and there’s that pity again, evident in her voice, and this time, Felix does bristle, cheeks warming in indignation—he doesn’t <em> need </em> her pity.</p><p>From the look of sheer confusion on Annette’s face, she doesn’t, which is a small mercy, if any. </p><p>“No, I don’t!” Annette insists, turning back to pout at him, and he’s not sure what it is she sees on his face right at that very moment, what obvious expression he’s wearing that lets it slip, but Felix sees the exact point in time that Annette figures it out, her mouth dropping to a quiet <em> oh </em> as her eyes take on a suspicious sheen. “Oh no, Felix,” she says, sounding all kinds of devastated and distressed, sadness coming off of her in waves, because it’s <em> sad. </em>It’s sad that Felix has given his heart to someone who won’t ever return the favor. </p><p>"Whatever. It's fine." </p><p>And it is, or at least, Felix has to tell himself day in and day out that it is. Has to think that the fact that Sylvain has yet to give Felix his heart back, after all these years and after all the poison and abuse Felix has hurled at him, means that he still wants to care for it. Has to believe it even as he watches Sylvain break hundreds of hearts and ruin a thousand more.</p><p>And really, when it comes down to it, Felix had given his heart to Sylvain all those years ago because he wanted to, not because he’d expected to get anything in return. </p><p>Dorothea makes a noise like she doesn’t believe him, and Felix can’t even muster up the wherewithal to glare at her, even as she asks, “Why Sylvain?”</p><p>Felix blinks, opening his mouth only to close it shut, teeth clacking painfully at the force he does so. How does he explain to anyone that Sylvain was so much more than the mask he presents to everyone else? How does Felix even begin to expound on something that’s deeply rooted to the very core of him? Something that’s just as true to him as the sun rising in the east every single day, something that’s never needed words, something that beats loud and clear, steady and sure, right next to his heart?</p><p>So Felix doesn’t even try, just shakes his head and says, with all the conviction he possesses, “Because he’s <em> Sylvain </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>+</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I already gave mine away. </em>
</p><p>The words haunt Sylvain, following him around like a vengeful spirit as he goes through the rest of the moon, hanging over him like a guillotine, tightening around his neck like a garrote, a noose cutting off his air. They’re a cloud over him, a shadow looming above the already bleak horizon of his future, and Sylvain has never felt more hopeless and helpless as he does now. It’s a ridiculous concept, to be sure, when he’s spent what feels like an entire childhood and then some, hopeless and helpless under Miklan’s abuse and his father’s expectations, and it’s especially ridiculous after the Conand Tower mission, where Sylvain had to face the culmination and realization of nearly every single one of his nightmares as a child, as Miklan transformed into an abomination, his appearance finally matching what he truly is on the inside.</p><p>But it’s true, because Felix’s words and their meaning have torn a hole through his chest more effectively than any weapon ever has and ever will, and Sylvain doesn’t know how he can ever recover from this.</p><p>
  <em> I already gave mine away. </em>
</p><p>Sylvain’s not even sure what he expected. Hell, he doesn’t know why he ever thought that Felix wouldn’t have given his heart away already, when Felix has always worn his heart on his sleeve—forever an open book even as he tries to cover it up with bluster and scowls. Sylvain should have known, should’ve seen it like he’d done with Ingrid and Dimitri, should’ve stopped it from ever happening in the first place—</p><p>“Sylvain?”</p><p>Someone—the Professor—says, drawing him out of the tumult of his thoughts and reminding him that despite how he feels, the world hasn’t actually stopped turning and Sylvain is, in fact, in the middle of a tea party. Across the table, the Professor lifts an eyebrow, the slightest hint of concern shining through on her otherwise blank façade, and Sylvain has to quickly pull up the walls he hadn’t even noticed were down in the first place at the sight. If even the Professor, with her lack of tact and understanding of social cues, is visibly concerned about him, then Sylvain must really be obvious.</p><p>Taking a sip of his tea—bergamot, sweet and slightly over-steeped—Sylvain gathers himself and pastes on a smile. “Sorry, Professor,” he flounders, partly for show but mostly because he’s having more trouble than usual donning a mask, and the rest of his excuse tastes even more of a lie than usual. “I was just distracted by your beauty.”</p><p>“You’re upset,” the Professor replies with a curious tilt of her head, a non-sequitur that has Sylvain’s smile feeling brittle around the edges, has him wanting to run away from the Professor and her unnerving stare.</p><p>But Sylvain stays put, stubborn to the very last. “Me? Why would I be upset about anything when I’m having tea with you?” He asks, taking another sip of tea even as his hackles rise and his skin crawl, the senseless flattery coming out of his mouth tasting like ash. “Truly there is no greater pleasure to be had.”</p><p>“And it’s not because of your brother,” comes the Professor’s next words, and this time, Sylvain is completely caught off-guard, and if he hadn’t just put his teacup down, he’d have dropped it all over his lap.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Because it’s only been several weeks since Conand Tower, sure, but after that first night when he’d sat down in silence with Felix out in the pond, Sylvain had scarcely thought about the entire thing. Instead, he’d been plagued by the conversation he’d overheard, about Felix’s heart and its undeserving recipient, and not a day has passed without Sylvain wracking his head, trying to figure out which unworthy individual holds in their filthy hands, the only thing Sylvain has ever truly wanted in his sad excuse of a life and—</p><p>Oh.</p><p><em> Oh </em>.</p><p>
  <em> Oh, no. </em>
</p><p>“Ah, Felix, then,” the Professor says, once again pulling Sylvain out of his thoughts. And he can’t even find the wherewithal to refute her, mind still reeling at the sudden realization as to why exactly he’d felt like <em> dying </em> when he’d heard Felix say that he’d already given his heart away to someone—someone who isn’t Sylvain, and <em> goddess above </em>, he’s a fucking idiot. “So, why are you upset at Felix?”</p><p>“I am <em> not </em> upset at Felix,” he begins to say, because he’s <em> not </em>. Sylvain’s never been upset at Felix his entire life, not really, not even when Felix is at his most difficult. But before he can even begin to explain why, he’s startling, spluttering incredulously as he watches the Professor pour out the contents of the teapot onto a nearby bush, pull out a flask from her coat, and empty out the obviously alcoholic contents into the now-empty teapot. “What—what are you doing?”</p><p>The Professor shrugs, pouring them both a cup of what is <em> definitely </em> not tea. “You look like you need something stronger,” she says in a no-nonsense tone, as if <em> day drinking </em> is easily justified by Sylvain <em> looking </em> like he needed something stronger. He’s never going to understand her. “Why are you upset, then?”</p><p>“There’s—” He pauses, struggling to find the words to make up another lie because the Professor hasn’t earned his truth, not yet, not ever. “I’m not,” he starts again, only to stop, reaching for his teacup instead and downing its contents, the whiskey cutting a burning line down his throat. “I’m not upset because I have no right to be upset.” The words are familiar, well-practiced even, and it’s jarring to hear how much they ring false when spoken outside the hollow halls of Gautier Castle.</p><p>“Your feelings are valid,” the Professor says, slowly, awkwardly, as if she’s repeating them after someone, and Sylvain can’t help the bark of laughter he lets out.</p><p>“No, they’re not.” They’re really, really not, but Sylvain appreciates the thought. “My feelings just make me an asshole.”</p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>And he’s not sure what possesses him to actually answer—maybe the whiskey’s too strong, maybe Sylvain has no tolerance to speak of, or maybe he really does need to talk to someone about this—but he’s slumping down on his seat and mumbling, “Felix gave his heart to someone and I hate it.” The words are ugly and hateful, and a part of him wants to swallow them back in and keep them in a jar deep in his bones where no one else can see them, but the rest of him is just glad to be free of them as something in his chest loosens, and more of the truth slips out of his tongue as he continues, “I want to go back in time to stop it from happening.” It’s a silly wish, selfish and wrong, but he wants it, much like he wants Felix’s heart for his own.</p><p>The Professor blinks, gaze suddenly sharp and assessing. “Why?” She asks, and something about the way she says the words, as if she can and will turn back time for him depending on his answer, has Sylvain straightening up in his seat and unleashing a truth that’s been burning on his tongue for what feels like an eternity.</p><p>“Because whoever Felix gave his heart to doesn’t deserve it,” he says, quietly, sincerely, as if the words are the only truth he knows, and maybe they are. “Because whoever it is, wouldn’t know the first thing about loving Felix.” Not like Sylvain does, and that’s the greatest tragedy of this, he thinks, swallowing down tears he has no right shedding. No one else knows how to love Felix as he’s meant to be loved, because no one else has ever stayed and bothered to learn. Not like him. “They wouldn’t love him right, they won’t be careful with his heart, and they’d just end up hurting him because that’s what everyone else always does.”</p><p>“Do you wish he’d given it to you instead, then?”</p><p><em> Yes, more than anything </em>, Sylvain thinks but doesn’t say, the words getting stuck in his throat, catching against the backs of his teeth. “No, no, I—I wouldn’t deserve it either.” He’s just as undeserving as everyone else, possibly even more undeserving than most even though he wants to pretend he’s not. “I don’t have a heart to give back, Professor. It wouldn’t be fair to him.” Felix deserves someone who’ll give him their heart in return, and Sylvain can’t, because he doesn’t have a heart because he’s just as much of a monster as his brother. “And besides, I’m the last person Felix would ever give his heart to.”</p><p>For a while, Sylvain thinks that that’s the end of that, that the Professor is regretting ever asking him what’s wrong, but when he looks up, he finds her pouring them both another round, as a bemused expression unfurls on her face.</p><p>“I don’t have a heart either,” she says, picking up her teacup and holding it up in a mockery of a toast, as if this similarity between them is something to be celebrated.</p><p>“This is a really shitty thing to bond over.” Because it is, and the fact that Sylvain’s actually holding up his own teacup of shitty whiskey says a lot about him.</p><p>The Professor considers it, lips pursing before she shrugs. “Well, there’s still murder.”</p><p>“Yeah, no, I’ll drink to this instead.”</p><p> </p><p> +</p><p> </p><p>War comes to Garreg Mach in a flurry of black wings, and even through their efforts, it falls—along with the Archbishop and their Professor—and they’re all forced to run from its smoldering ruins.</p><p>They’d managed to get everyone out—even the boar, knocked out cold with a spell after he’d tried to follow after Edelgard’s procession, and slung over Dedue’s destrier—and made arrangements to meet up and set up camp somewhere safe before heading up together towards the Kingdom, but Felix had lost track of everyone in the chaos. Everyone, except for Ingrid, if only because she’d caught his hand in a vise grip back when they’d been running to the stables and hadn’t let go since. She’s still holding onto his hand until now, even if it’s completely unnecessary what with <em> him holding on to her </em> for dear life as her pegasus takes them farther and farther away from the monastery.</p><p>“We’re here,” Ingrid says, just as they swoop down below the tree line, his stomach doing the same. And if this had been any other time, he’d think Ingrid’s messing with him. But it’s not, and so he keeps his comments to himself and only eases his hold around Ingrid’s waist when she leads them down to a clearing just in front of the small campsite. </p><p>From here, he can see some of their classmates, already busy with aiding the small group of monastery healers that had tagged along with them, as well as the horses they’d ridden out of Garreg Mach. Something in Felix’s chest eases a tiny bit when he sees Lady unharmed, her black coat shiny and unmarred. That is, until Annette’s familiar form appears, running full-tilt towards them from the camp, grim-faced and harried, with blood splattered all over her clothes and staining her hands. </p><p>“Felix!” She calls as soon as she’s within shouting distance and Felix stumbles to his feet, already running, sprinting towards Annette, his heart practically beating out of his chest. Because whatever’s happened can’t be anything good if Annette looks like <em> that </em>, as if she’s on the verge of tears and anything can set her off. “Mercie needs you,” she says, which makes no sense at all, until she adds, “It’s Sylvain, he’s—”</p><p>Felix doesn’t wait to hear the rest of her words, already taking off towards the tent which Marianne, pale and shaking, is resting in front of. He barely spares her a nod before he’s ducking inside, only to pause at the threshold, blinking at the sudden dimness. There are rows upon rows of hastily-assembled cots, familiar and unfamiliar faces occupying them, but there’s no sign of Sylvain’s red hair on any of them, no sign of Felix’s North Star, his beacon in every battlefield, among the injured. He’s about to go back outside, ask Marianne just <em> where the hell </em> Sylvain is, when a hand catches him by the arm, and it’s a testament to how completely out of it he is that he hasn’t drawn his sword on <em> Linhardt </em> right then and there.</p><p>“Oh, finally, you’re here,” Linhardt says before Felix can get a word in, dragging him over to a secluded corner where Mercedes and Flayn had set up some kind of vigil around—<em> no </em>. </p><p>Felix stops, a scream lodging painfully in his throat as he takes in the scene before him. Sylvain lies still on the cot, unconscious but with his face contorted into a rictus of pain. His entire chest is a bloodied, burnt mess even with the steady glow of Faith magic pouring out of Flayn’s and Mercedes’ hands, and if not for Linhardt’s surprisingly steady grip on his arm, Felix would have fallen to his knees, suddenly weak, his own chest throbbing and aching as if in sympathy. As it is, he barely makes it to the low bench Mercedes is sitting on, head swimming as he tries to recall when this could have happened and comes up with nothing.</p><p>He’d seen Sylvain off himself earlier, and Sylvain had been bruised and battered from defending the monastery, sure, but not like this. If Felix had known— "What happened?" He asks, forcing the words out as he greedily watches the rise and fall of Sylvain’s shoulders, counts each breath obsessively, itches to touch Sylvain to make sure he is still here.</p><p>“Hubert," comes Linhardt’s answer, settling down across from him with a faint grimace. “It’s a delayed effect from an unknown spell. We only noticed something was wrong when we were already here and Sylvain started screaming.” And Felix can see it happening in his mind’s eye easily—he’s witnessed Sylvain getting hurt so many times already that he can picture the entire thing with startling clarity, can hear Sylvain’s pained screams echoing in his ears.</p><p>Beside him, Mercedes shifts, turning to him with a soft smile and drawing him out of his thoughts, and for once, Felix allows himself to take comfort in her presence. "He's stable for now,” she assures him, “Professor Manuela gave him a potion just before she left to take care of the others and we can just wait for it to take effect.” Which sounds fine if Sylvain were suffering from a paper cut, and he’s about to tell Mercedes so just as she adds, “But it would be better for Sylvain if you helped.” </p><p>“How?” Felix is no healer, can barely cobble up enough faith for the Goddess to close a laceration, and he doesn’t know how he can possibly help with <em> this </em>. He’s never shared his Father’s and Glenn’s proficiency for the healing arts and he’s never regretted it as much as he does now. </p><p>“You have Sylvain’s heart,” Linhardt says, as if it’s obvious, as if Felix should know this and not as if the words are an impossibility that Felix has long wished for. “You don’t even have to put it back.” Linhardt waves his hand. “You just need to think about him, and it should start to work immediately.”</p><p>“I don’t have his heart.” Because Felix doesn’t. He knows this better than anyone. As much as he wishes he does, Felix doesn’t have Sylvain’s heart, and to be told that he does has dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. “I—I can’t do anything,” he adds when Linhardt startles, brows furrowed in confusion and looking as if he’s about to refute him.</p><p>Except it’s not Linhardt who does, but Flayn, frustration writ clearly on her face. “Of course you do!” She insists, cheeks puffing up in indignation. “You’ve had it for so long that Sylvain’s heart beats perfectly in time with yours!” If she didn’t have her hands occupied, Felix thinks she would be waving them around with how she’s practically vibrating in her seat. “It’s right there!” </p><p><em> But it’s not </em>, Felix thinks, it’s not there or anywhere with him because he doesn’t have it, and they’re wasting time making him want things he shouldn’t, but Mercedes is lifting her hands from where they’ve been hovering over Sylvain and holding them out to him, a wordless entreaty that silences them all. </p><p>“Felix, may I?” Mercedes asks, and Felix hesitates for half a breath before putting his hands in hers. There’s no sudden flash of light, no trumpets playing from the heavens when Mercedes carefully places their hands over his chest, right above his frantic heart, but there is a warmth—a warmth that has Felix remembering one cold day back in Wyvern Moon, has him thinking back on the day they’d made their childhood promise and the warmth that had filled him then, that fills him whenever he thinks of Sylvain, that’s filling him now, spreading from his chest and out to the tips of his fingers. “There,” Mercedes says, just as he makes out a second drumbeat perfectly echoing his, coming from a heart—<em> Sylvain’s </em>—nestled next to his own. “Do you feel it now?”</p><p>“That’s—” he chokes out, before swallowing down the rest of his words as he blinks back tears, because it’s not the time for realizations, not with Sylvain so still and unmoving before them. “What should I do?” </p><p>Mercedes smiles, and this time, when she takes his hands, she leads them to Sylvain’s, and Felix doesn’t need any more instruction as he curls his fingers around Sylvain’s wrist, thumbs settling against his pulse. “Think about Sylvain, believe that he’ll pull through, and let us do the rest.”</p><p>“A little faith in us wouldn’t hurt either,” Flayn quips with a dimpled smile he finds himself returning clumsily.</p><p>“Okay.” </p><p>Felix can do that. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>iv.</p><p> </p><p>“Shouldn’t you be in Sreng?”</p><p>To say that <em> that </em> particular sequence of words is what Sylvain wants to hear from Felix after nearly two years of conversations stolen in between war councils and sparse letters would be a terrible, terrible lie, but it is what he gets. And, well, he can’t really say that he didn’t expect it. Especially when he’d ridden down with no warning at all to the small encampment of Fraldarius soldiers near the border of Blaiddyd, surprising the sentries with <em> his </em> presence, because while they’d been the ones to request reinforcements from House Gautier, they certainly did not expect the Gautier <em> heir </em> himself to come running. Except for Felix, it seems, who’d only rolled his eyes in annoyance and motioned Sylvain towards his tent—only slightly bigger than the others’—as soon as he’d dismounted from Lady.</p><p>“I missed you too, Fe,” he calls out with a grin and a warm affection that spreads out from his chest to his fingertips, earning himself wide-eyed stares from the newer Fraldarius soldiers and amused eye rolls from the older ones. “The Margrave can hold down the fort,” he adds flippantly the moment he’s inside Felix’s tent, and it’s not an answer, not at all, but it ends up revealing just enough, what with the way Felix whirls around and spears him with narrowed eyes. </p><p>“What happened?” There’s a surreal moment where he thinks Felix might be checking him for injuries, for any suspicious bruises, and—Sylvain has to choke down the hysteria clawing its way up his throat because he <em> knows </em> exactly why Felix is looking. And it’s sweet, really, but the Margrave isn’t Miklan. No, the Margrave makes sure that the bruising and the scarring stays <em> inside </em> . “ <em> Sylvain </em>.”</p><p>A part of him wants to tell Felix everything, but he’s pretty sure that Felix would march over to Gautier and disembowel the Margrave if he did, so Sylvain just shrugs and makes his way to the small brazier at the corner of the tent. “Just the usual.” It’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with before and he tells Felix so. “Apparently he’s decided that now is the best time to marry me off.”</p><p>Sylvain still remembers that particular conversation clearly; he’d just returned from patrolling the border to Sreng, every part of him still covered in a fine powder of snow, when he’d been summoned to the Margrave’s study. It had been a common enough occurence that he had not thought it strange, until he’d walked in and had been immediately met with some faceless girl who had presented to him her hollow trinket of a heart while the Margrave looked on in smug satisfaction. And then the next thing Sylvain knew, he was back on the icy roads, this time with a small group of soldiers they’re loaning to House Fraldarius, because there’s only one heart that Sylvain wants, and it belongs to none of those vapid, simpering girls.</p><p>“We’re in the middle of a <em> war </em>,” Felix intones, incredulous as he sits down next to Sylvain, knee bumping against his in a way that would seem accidental, if not for the way Felix flushes, visible even under his hood.</p><p>“Exactly,” he returns easily, reining in the flippancy threatening to color his tone, because Felix is trying to be comforting in his own way, and Sylvain knows for a fact that Felix hates the frivolity Sylvain wears like armor, but some of it still bleeds through. Sylvain can’t help it, not when this is the only way he can talk about <em> this </em> without wanting to hurl himself off the nearest cliff. “I can die any moment which is why he wants me to breed some noble girl with a crest so he can have heirs at the ready, just in case.” The Margrave never phrases it like that, of course, but Sylvain has learned how to read between the lines over the years.</p><p>From the corner of his eye, Sylvain watches Felix puff up—like one of the monastery cats who bristle whenever Sylvain comes near—before deflating. A few years ago, Felix would be red-faced and hissing something disparaging about engagements, but now Felix just sighs and runs a hand through his hair, hood coming off in the process, and whatever he’s about to say is quickly drowned out by the squawk Sylvain lets out.</p><p>“Your hair!” Felix’s hair, which had come down to the small of his back when Sylvain had seen him last, has been shorn off, the ends barely reaching his chin and throwing the sharpness of his face in stark relief. It’s ridiculous really, considering everything that’s happened and all that they’ve lost over the past few moons, but somehow, <em> this </em> is what devastates Sylvain the most. “What happened?” He asks, voice raw, because Felix’s hair has never been this short—even when they were children, Felix’s hair had always been long enough to be put up into a stubby ponytail—and seeing it like this calls to mind a memory that has Sylvain brushing a trembling hand against the uneven ends. “Felix, you know the longer hair doesn’t make you look like—”</p><p>Felix scoffs, batting his hand away with a click of his tongue. “I <em> know </em>,” he says, meeting Sylvain’s eyes for several beats as if to punctuate his point, before looking away. “I was in a skirmish with some of Cornelia’s mages and caught a fireball to the back of my head.” There’s an embarrassed flush that spreads over Felix’s cheeks at the rather benign explanation, one that Sylvain wants to taste and feel under his lips as the worry in his chest abates. “It’s just hair.” </p><p>“Yeah,” Sylvain agrees, even though a part of him wants to say that it’s not. But he doesn’t really want to argue with Felix, not really, so he just nods and keeps mum, idly tracing the curve of Felix’s cheek with his eyes, fingers itching to do the same. </p><p>If Sylvain was a braver man, he’d give in to the urge and touch Felix, map the places where the baby fat he used to tease Felix about has given way to sharp cheekbones, but he’s not. Sylvain’s never been particularly brave. It’s a good thing that Felix <em> is </em>then, and Sylvain can only watch with bated breath as Felix takes his hand in his and brings it up, up, up to the edge of his jaw, which Sylvain cups reverently. He cards his fingers through Felix’s hair, thumbing at Felix’s thundering pulse, and it takes everything in him not to pull Felix in and drink his next breath from wind-chapped lips.</p><p>“Fe?” The nickname leaves Sylvain’s lips in an exhale, a question directed to the minute flutter of Felix’s lashes; one that’s answered by the press of Felix’s forehead against his.</p><p>“Don’t die,” Felix says into the air between them, voice barely above a whisper. “And don’t marry any of those girls.”</p><p>“I won’t,” Sylvain says, silent and sure, because he may not have Felix’s heart, but he has their childhood promise and <em> this </em>—whatever this is that has Sylvain feeling as if he’d stepped into a hot bath even as what sounds like a snowstorm rages outside—and it’s enough. It’ll have to be enough. “I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>+</p><p> </p><p>The war stretches on and on—two years going on four, until they’re nearing the fifth year of this ceaseless bloodshed and Felix quickly forgets what peacetime feels like, wonders idly if he’d ever known it in the first place. He forgets everything but the weight of a sword in his hands, the crackle of lightning in his fingertips, forgets what it’s like to be a person and not just a weapon, forgets how it feels to not have blood on his hands and in his lungs. </p><p>Forgets everything, except for the promise tucked deep inside his heart, and another that tugs him down south to the monastery, towards a hope he’d long thought to be extinguished by the frozen cold.</p><p>His left shoulder pulls as he sits up on the cot, the sting of it startling enough to give him pause, forcing him to take a moment to breathe in through the pain. He’s always recovered easily from his injuries, a side-effect, he’s learned, of Sylvain taking good care of his heart – <em> “it’s what clued me in, you know,” </em> Mercedes had said with a knowing smile, <em> “the two of you always healed too quickly, and I’m a competent healer, but I’m not </em> that <em> good,” </em> – and it’s never been more obvious than it is now, because Felix remembers the bishop tersely saying that he might not be able to use his left arm anymore after it had been nearly torn out from his shoulder. </p><p>And yet his arm feels fine, if a bit sore, and Felix knows he has Sylvain to thank for that. He can hope that he’s doing the same, that his feelings are enough to keep Sylvain safe in this war, but Felix knows Sylvain well enough to know that hoping wouldn’t be enough. No, Felix will have to be there to make sure that Sylvain won’t be breaking their childhood promise anytime soon.</p><p>Pulling his cloak on, Felix slips out of the tent acting as a makeshift infirmary and into the frigid air. He means to make a quick escape to his tent but he’s quickly caught by the bishop, who looks horrified and a touch baffled that he’s already on his feet.</p><p>“Milord, you shouldn’t be moving yet!” She says, and if Felix had a bullion every time he hears that, his family’s coffers would be able to continue financing this war for years to come. </p><p>“I’m fine,” he says, but doesn’t shrug off the soothing balm of the healing spell she casts. His shoulder <em> is </em> still a bit sore, and Felix won’t have the privilege of having a healer on hand until he gets to Garreg Mach, so he stays still and acquiesces to having his left arm and shoulder prodded and tested. “Where’s my Father?” He asks once the glow of faith magic subsides.</p><p>Before she can answer, his Father seems to appear from thin air and walks up to them. Felix barely registers the bishop excusing herself as he straightens up, the action instinctive, borne from years of having his posture nitpicked by countless tutors. </p><p>“Felix, should you be up already?” </p><p>“I’m not going with you to Fhirdiad,” Felix replies, a non-sequitur, because he doesn’t really have the time to listen to his Father’s sermons, nor does he really <em> want </em> to listen to another iteration of <em> if you insist on throwing yourself to the frontlines, at least bring a battalion with you </em>, and the sooner he makes it clear that he won’t be marching with the rest of their retinue, the better. </p><p>If his Father is at all surprised at his statement, he doesn’t show it, and only nods, an expression that Felix has long ago figured to be disappointment crossing his face. “You’ll be going down to the monastery, I take it?”  </p><p>As if there’s anywhere else he‘d go to when everyone he cares about will be converging there. “Yes.”</p><p>His Father nods, clear blue eyes—just like Glenn’s, exactly like Glenn’s—softening at the edges as he says, “Be safe, my son,” and a bit of the ice between them thaws in that single moment, before Felix freezes it right back because he’s the only one his Father has now, and at this point, he can’t really afford to be picky. Glenn’s long gone, and no matter what his Father hopes and prays to the Goddess, the boar too is dead, which just leaves Felix, who’s never been anyone’s first choice.</p><p>(Except, maybe, Sylvain, who gave Felix his heart at <em> nine </em>.)  </p><p>“Worry about yourself, old man,” he scoffs as he turns away, heading towards his tent in a furious haze, jaw clenched tight to keep in what feels like an entire decade’s worth of resentment from bubbling over, because it wouldn’t do to air out his grievances with his Father while they’re in the middle of a war. </p><p>So he keeps on walking, lips pressed together as his mind whirrs and Felix thinks, vicious, that <em> he </em> isn’t the one who’s likely to die for something stupid like honor and chivalry or whatever empty virtue his Father has deemed more important than living. No, that would be his Father, because Felix has something to live for, a promise to fulfill, and he’ll be damned if he breaks it. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>v.</p><p> </p><p>Dimitri is alive, and so is their Professor, and for what feels like the first time in a very, very long time, Sylvain allows himself to hope.</p><p>He knows that it’s probably foolish to do so, futile even, because while Dimitri’s alive—at Dedue’s expense no less—he’s not well. Hell, he probably hasn’t <em> been </em> well ever since the Tragedy all those years ago, but it’s only now that they’re all being confronted with it so violently that they’re finally taking notice of what Felix has been saying for years. The Professor too, isn’t well, despite the stoic mask she wears. Sylvain can’t even imagine losing a day, much less a year, and the Professor has lost <em> five, </em> and is so obviously floundering in the face of Gilbert’s ridiculous demands disguised as advice. So, no, fostering any kind of hope in the face of their tenuous situation isn’t, in any way, advisable, but Sylvain can’t help the tiny spark of hope that ignites in his chest.</p><p>Even if Dimitri’s more beast than man these days, and even if the Professor is the one asking Sylvain for tips on strategy for their battles now instead of the other way around, they’re all here. Everyone that Sylvain truly and sincerely cares about is here, gathered in one place for more than a week, and it’s already more than he’s gotten these past five years. Most importantly, Felix is here, hale and healthy and whole and <em> oh so beautiful </em>, and if Sylvain had a heart, it would be squeezing inside its cage, finally resuming its beating after being frozen for so long. </p><p>Felix is <em> here </em>, a tether, an anchor, a steady hand leading Sylvain back to shore each and every time the carnage and bloodshed of war threaten to pull him under. War has always been his lot in life—he’d been born into it, hell, he’d been bred for it, and for the longest time, Sylvain has resigned himself to a fate of endless, senseless war. But with Felix back at his side, Sylvain thinks he can have more, be more. </p><p>Not to say that the war isn’t terrible, because it is. It’s hell, and it becomes hellish still as they cross swords with former schoolmates—Lorenz and Ferdinand both felled in one day, too stubborn to listen to reason, too proud to flee when the Professor gives them the chance to do so—but they keep going, they have to. They’ve given up and lost too much to stop now, so they slog on, and with every battle and every hard-won victory, the tiny, sputtering spark of hope that lives in Sylvain’s chest grows into a steady flame.</p><p>They get Dedue back, all thanks to Ashe stubbornly holding on to the tiny shard of Dedue’s heart he’d kept safe over the years. It’s an unexpected boon of giving your heart to someone, Sylvain discovers, trying not to reek of bitterness and ultimately failing, especially when everyone seems to take that as their cue to exchange hearts.</p><p>A few moons later, they get Dimitri back as well, but his return comes at the cost of Lord Rodrigue’s life. This time, Sylvain savors his bitterness because everyone seems to forget which one of them lost a father, offering comfort to Dimitri while Felix slips through the cracks—forgotten and overlooked once again.</p><p>“I’m here, Fe,” Sylvain says as soon as he makes his way to where Felix has been standing vigil over the hastily prepared grave, the words achingly familiar before he realizes that he’d said the exact same thing at a different funeral, for a different Fraldarius. If this had been anyone else, Sylvain would be spewing out condolences, but this is Felix, and Felix has only ever wanted for people to stay, so that’s what Sylvain does. “I’m here.” </p><p>“I know,” Felix huffs out, letting Sylvain tangle their fingers together—something they’d done countless times as children and something that Sylvain wishes and hopes and prays they’ll still be doing until they’re old and gray. “I know you are,” Felix adds, and just like that, Sylvain’s world grows brighter, better, and happier, filled with Felix’s gruff affection and this unspoken thing between them that grows sweeter day by day. </p><p>Of course, it’s when Sylvain starts to think that he can have this forever that it all goes to shit.</p><p>Felix falls and doesn’t get back up.</p><p>Felix falls and Sylvain’s world grinds to a halt.</p><p>Felix falls and Sylvain sees <em> red </em>.</p><p>And the color is all Sylvain <em> knows and tastes and feels </em> as he cuts and carves and slashes through Imperial lines, heeding the Lance of Ruin’s call for the first and last time in his sorry, pathetic life—</p><p>“Sylvain.” </p><p>—It’s on his hands and in his lungs. It’s everywhere and nowhere, filling his throat and choking him up until he’s drowning in it and Sylvain lets it, <em> because Felix is gone— </em></p><p>“Sylvain!”</p><p>
  <em> —and there’s no reason why Sylvain should still be alive because he can’t do this, he can’t do this, not without Felix— </em>
</p><p>“<em> Sylvain! </em>”</p><p>The world is red, until it isn’t, and Sylvain blinks away the sweat, blood, and tears as he looks up from the armored hand grabbing at his arm to see Dedue, stricken but stalwart still. “Dedue,” he croaks out, the fury that had been fueling him fading away as grief sets in. “Felix, he’s—”</p><p>“He needs you,” Dedue cuts him off, and the way he says the words stops Sylvain short because it’s like Dedue’s saying that <em> Felix is alive </em>. Except that can’t be, because Sylvain had seen a lance go straight through Felix’s chest—had felt the tearing, crushing pain like it had been his own, so— “Mercedes says you can help save him.” </p><p>“<em> What? </em>”</p><p>Dedue doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but it’s a very close thing. Instead, he shakes his head and says, “Come on,” before pulling Sylvain up to his feet. Sylvain hadn’t even realized he’d fallen to his knees, and only the niggling bit of hope that Felix still lives is stopping him from leaning all his weight on Dedue as they make their way through the warren of rooms deep inside the castle. He sees healers running about, splattered in blood and viscera, thinks he glimpses Lysithea and Annette huddled in an alcove together, bruised and battered but alive, but he doesn’t see Felix anywhere.</p><p>They stop at a small room Linhardt is slumped in front of, and even with the antiseptic in the air, the scent of death is thick and unmistakable. This time, Sylvain feels it when his knees give out, because he sees Felix and immediately wishes he hasn’t. Because Felix is so, so still; pale and unmoving on the cot. Because Felix <em> did </em> get a lance to the chest and <em> fuck </em> , Sylvain can’t do this. He doesn’t know why Mercedes wanted him here when he can’t do a single thing to make Felix start breathing again, can’t do anything but slump against Dedue and let out a keen as Marianne pulls away Felix’s undershirt to reveal <em> oh goddess </em>—</p><p>“Sylvain!” Flayn gasps, looking up from where she’s been pouring bottle after bottle of vulneraries over Felix’s wounds. </p><p>“Oh, thank the Goddess,” Professor Manuela says from where she’s sitting by Felix’s head, hands glowing green with faith magic. “Dedue, bring him there, please.” Sylvain doesn’t see where she points him at, but Dedue is already hauling him towards Mercedes, who’s kneeling on the floor and doing something complicated with her hands that slows the bleeding down to a sluggish trickle.</p><p>“Sylvain,” Mercedes says when she turns to him, urgent and frantic, rattled in a way he’s never seen or heard her before. “You have to put it back,” she says, looking at him as if the words should mean something to him, except it doesn’t, and he doesn’t know why they want him here when Sylvain can’t even look at Felix without feeling like he’s being torn in two.  </p><p>“Wha—put what back?” </p><p>“Felix’s heart!” Flayn snaps from across the cot, and Sylvain never thought her capable of cruelty but obviously he’s mistaken, because the words are a slap to the face, salt on a festering wound.</p><p>“I don’t have it,” he snarls back, rising to leave, but before he can, Mercedes is pulling him back down and there’s something in her eyes that makes him stay put and listen.</p><p>“You <em> do </em> ,” she tells him firmly in a tone that brooks no argument as she takes his hand and presses it back to his own chest. “ <em> Look, </em> ” she says and Sylvain <em> does </em> and sees another heart, a second one snug against his own. It’s a startling sight, not because it looks wrong, but because of how <em> right </em> it looks and feels—a puzzle piece slotted perfectly into place, complementing his softest curves and sharpest edges. And maybe that’s why Sylvain had missed something so obvious for so long, because Felix has always been with him, has been a part of his soul since time immemorial; wherever he went, whatever he did, he’d always brought Felix along, and now, he has to bring Felix back.</p><p>Swallowing down his trepidation and tears, Sylvain asks, “How do I put it back?”</p><p>“Like this.”</p><p>And then Mercedes <em> pulls </em>.</p><p> </p><p>+</p><p> </p><p>When Sylvain comes to, there are calloused fingers carding gently through his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp, and the actions—careful and repetitive—nearly lull him back to sleep. But then the humming starts, a light, happy tune that calls to mind long summer days spent running down the familiar halls of the Fraldarius estate, and Sylvain shoots up so fast that he’s dizzy with it, the last vestiges of sleep falling away when his eyes find Felix, wan and weary but alive. </p><p>“Fe?” </p><p>“Sylvie,” Felix says, and the sound of his old childhood nickname, that Felix has given him and that no one but Felix has ever truly used, breaks Sylvain out of his trance, and he’s collapsing back onto his seat, grasping at any part of Felix he can reach.</p><p>“You idiot,” Sylvain rasps even as he presses feverish kisses to Felix’s scarred hands, greedily drinking in their warmth and marvelling at their sheer existence because <em> Felix is alive and still here and he hasn’t left Sylvain all alone </em> . “Why would you give me your heart?” He doesn’t really want to ask, but the question has been festering on his tongue ever since he’d been summarily kicked out of Felix’s sick room while the healers bustled about, and while Sylvain would rather not look a gift horse in the mouth, a part of him needs to to know, because he doesn’t understand why Felix would give <em> him </em> something so precious. </p><p>Sylvain doesn’t deserve Felix’s heart, but Felix obviously feels differently because he’s furrowing his brow and is looking at Sylvain like he’s being ridiculous. “Who else would I give it to?” Felix asks, as if he can’t even wrap his mind about giving it to anyone else but Sylvain, as if it’s only ever been Sylvain for him, and that’s—too much, <em> too much </em> because Sylvain is broken and he can’t offer Felix anything in return— </p><p>“Fe. Fe, you know if I had a heart to give, I’d give it to you.” </p><p>Felix blinks, bemusement twisting his features as he opens and closes his mouth once, twice, obviously grappling for words, before he finally says, “You already gave me your heart, Sylvain.” </p><p>Now it’s Sylvain’s turn to blink in confusion because, “<em> What </em> .” Because Sylvain doesn’t <em> have </em> a heart, just like Miklan and the Margrave. Sylvain’s a monster and he’s known that for years, except, he’s also thought that Felix had given his heart to someone else so maybe this is yet another thing that he’s wrong about. He hopes it’s another thing he’s wrong about.</p><p>“You gave it to me ages ago,” Felix says, hands twisting in Sylvain’s hold, and for a terrifying second, Sylvain thinks he’s pulling away, but Felix only takes his hands and brings it up to his bandaged chest. “I’m pretty sure it was when we made the promise, after the well.” </p><p>And in Sylvain’s mind, the memory plays, skipping over the freezing, terrifying cold to the aftermath—to Felix, tear-stained and afraid, telling him that he can’t die, that he can’t leave Felix behind—just as the faint green glow of faith magic envelops Felix’s hands. It’s nothing like what Mercedes did when she’d shown him Felix’s heart; Sylvain doesn’t see anything but their hands splayed over the bandages. Instead, Sylvain feels a pulsing warmth that beats in time with his heart, filling him with a sense of home, of belonging. </p><p>“That’s—” His next breath leaves him in a shuddering hiccup as he feels the tears overflow and finally fall. Sylvain doesn’t bother hiding them, even as Felix makes a distressed sound and swipes a thumb along the curve of his cheek, because Felix has always trusted Sylvain with his tears, and this time, Sylvain will trust him with his. “I always thought I didn’t have one."</p><p>“Do you—" Felix starts before hesitating, looking up at him through dark lashes; an action that on anyone else would be coquettish, but on Felix reads the opposite. "Do you want it back?” </p><p>“What, Fe—no!" Sylvain startles, blinking away the tears as he scrambles up on the bed, careful not to jostle Felix. He reaches up, cupping Felix's cheeks, and pours out every truth he'd locked up over the years. "There’s no one else I’d entrust it to,” he says, punctuating it with a lingering kiss on Felix’s forehead — “I want you to keep it,” — on the tip of his nose — "It’s yours," — on the apple of his cheek — "It’s always been yours,” — and on the curve of another.</p><p><em> I'm yours, </em> Sylvain thinks but doesn't say, lips hovering a hair's breadth away over Felix's, <em> I'm yours for however long you'll have me. </em></p><p>“Do you want <em> mine </em>back?" Felix asks, and this time, when he looks up at Sylvain through his lashes, it's all teasing and coy, dousing him with liquid heat.</p><p>Sylvain doesn't even have the chance to babble out an affirmative, before Felix is leaning up and in — for a short eternity, Felix's chapped lips are all Sylvain knows. That is, until something seems to click back into place somewhere deep inside him, and Sylvain has to pull away, dazed and reeling, clutching at his chest. He doesn't need any faith magic to know what this means, not when the twinkle in Felix's eyes all but confirms it.</p><p>“Oh, <em> oh </em> , that’s <em> you </em>.” </p><p>“Yeah," Felix says with a smile and a laugh that Sylvain can already taste, as they both lean back in for a kiss. "I’m home.” </p><p> </p><p>+</p><p> </p><p><em> here is the deepest secret nobody knows </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> higher than the soul can hope and mind can hide) </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart </em></p><p>i carry your heart<br/>
(i carry it in my heart)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>and they lived happily ever after :')</p><p>please validate me and water my crops by leaving a comment ;-;</p></blockquote></div></div>
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